Beauty, Mercy, Justice

The Few, the Proud, the Sociopaths

Yesterday my eldest, soon to be 19 and trying to find his way, visited the local Marine Corps recruiting office, much to my dismay. They suggested that he take their entrance exam, just to see if he would pass it. For this they took him into a back room. He said the room was splattered with red paint, like blood. On one wall there was an image of a skull and the slogan “Kill them all and let God sort them out.”

The quote is a paraphrase of the advice the Cistercian monk Arnald Amalric gave to Simon de Montfort, who was suffering scruples as he prepared to sack a French town during the crusade against the Albigensians. Comforted by this counsel, Simon and his army proceeded to slaughter some 20,000 men, women and children. The slogan has been invoked in one form or other to justify indiscriminate killing ever since.

The Pentagon, of course, professes to observe international law regarding conduct in warfare and claims to attempt to minimize civilian casualties. Either that is dishonest, a PR ploy, or this is a local aberration, the proverbial bad apples, apparently intent on recruiting sociopaths. But it is hard to believe that no commanding officer ever saw that room.

I intend to write to the commandant of the Marine Corps and tell him what my son saw. I’ll let you know if I get a response.

18 Responses

What would you do if one of your children did join the US military? My own children are still young so I have a lot of time to think about it. While I realize the Church legitimates the existence of militaries in principal, I believe the current US military is a criminal organization worse by far than any mafia in the world. If my son decided to become part of a criminal organization that operated by murdering innocents for the purpose of protecting its drug trade I would feel obligated to pretty much shun him. Why would I act differently if my son joined an organization that murdered innocents to protect its oil trade?

Well I can you what we did when our 18 year old daughter signed a contract with the Marines. We expressed our concerns, we questioned her reasoning….we made it clear we did not support the decesion but we made it clear that we loved her. You just have to take any thought of shunning off the table. Her contract is on hold right now due to some medical concerns. And to be honest, there are times when I think that maybe a stint in the Marines would have been better than where she is now. But then I come to my senses and just keep holding her in my thoughts and prayers. But there just really isn’t all that much you can once they hit that magical age 18.

I don’t disagree with you, but honestly am curious if you would advise the same if the child were joining a less socially sanctioned criminal organization – a mafia or a street gang or a cartel? Or if a child decided to become a prostitute or a porn actor? My natural inclination is to do what you’ve done, and that’s been about how I treat family and friends who are in the military. I let them know, when it comes up, what I think of the military’s activity and ethics but I leave it at ‘agree to disagree’ and focus on the other 99% of what the person is and does with their lives. I haven’t had to test that approach out on a more commonly acknowledged sort of criminal acquaintance. But if it were my own child I would feel some obligation to take a stronger stand than “I disagree but it is your life” if they started selling crack in the projects or busting the knees of gambling addicts or having sex for money. And since US military imperialism has a much more harmful effect on the world than any particular criminal organization I would have a hard time justifying taking a softer stance on my child joining the military. Again I’m not judging or accusing anyone, I am trying to think through it ahead of time and learn from those who have dealt with this dilemma.

First of all the military, even in service to an empire, is not morally equivalent to the mafia or a drug cartel. St John the Baptist advised soldiers to be content with their pay (and here translations differ) to do no violence. Christ praised the faith of the Roman centurian, and it was a Roman soldier who was the first Gentile to receive the gospel.
That said, it is certainly problematic. And don’t worry, my words will be stronger than agreeing to disagree. The weird thing is, the kid is no patriot; wuite otherwise: he is prone to extreme anti-government conspiracy theories. But he is also lost, not having a clue. And like I said, these fit,trim “together” guys are flattering him….

Zeb- I have spent the last year trying to cope with my daughter’s actions, our beautiful homeschooled daughter who could have easily gotten a scholarship to college and had our support. Our conversations with her over the past year have been firm and unyeilding but we do still love her. Are you saying there is a time when we get to give up and wash our hands of it all? If my child was engaged in a criminal activity I know I would have the fortitude to turn them in. Time and again over this past year my husband and I have loved her enough to tell when she has been wrong, immoral, hurtful. W

Oops….and when she could not abide by a few ground rules for living in our house we loved her enough to let her go. In the parable of the prodigal son the father sees his son coming from a long way off and it was pointed out in a homily that it is because the father has been watching and waiting for him to come back. I will be like that – in no way will we aid self destructive behaviour but we are here when she’s ready.

Wow. Good question. But your chillen are all small; mine range from almost 19 to 2. My teens do not think like me at all, and I can only hope that they will come around. I myself had a tumultuous adolescence and believed a lot of things that seem bizarre to me, so I must be patient with them. It is really hard, as I was very idealistic and hopeful, if naive, and they tend to be cynical and somewhat hopeless. But then look at their world compared to mine. Even though I grew up in a crazy time, I never worried about making a living; times were prosperous and jobs easy to come by. And the erosion of what Kirk called the Permanent Things was not so far along (no great fan of Kirk’s, but he had his moments).
I hope you are more fortunate as your kids grow; personally I think this is karma, as I put my parents through purgatory, if not hell….
So if he indeed joins the Marines I will love him, not reject him, though he will know what I think. Indeed, he is a bit annoyed that I am publicizing what he told me, to which I respond “But Luke, I am a troublemaker.”

I have written as stringently against the U.S. military as I have anything. I detest patriotism and U.S. imperialism. I would piss on every U.S. flag I see if I could.

This has caused some tension between my brother and I over the years. He is an Afghanistan vet, and now a cop, and a type A sorta guy who still believes the whole song and dance about the military actually being a “service” to others, etc. But, having lost men he trained, he no longer supports the wars, and now admits that he knows he will never sleep through a whole night in his life again. With that he shares something with my mother I never will. I have never seen her awaken from sleep, whether in the morning or from a nap, without waking up startled, sometimes shouting. She was a young Navy nurse in Saigon during the Tet invasion, and made decisions regarding which Marines to treat, while under mortar fire, that no 22 year old should ever have to make. Her father was on a WWII destroyer with a few friends and a couple distant cousins from his county in WVA. It got hit by a torpedo and my gramps made it from the boiler room to the deck of the ship. A lieutenant ordered him to seal a door shut that was the only exit for men still below. My grandfather refused, several times. The LT held a gun to his head and gave the order to close the door. Upon getting home, gramps drank 12-20 drinks a day for nearly four decades, in order, as he told my pastor father in a “confession” of sorts a decade or so before he died, so as to not hear the men pounding on the other side of that door so loudly. My mother remembers him as a very angry dad. He was the gentlest grandfather you could imagine, but I did bear his name. He was adamant that no grandson of his should join the military. But he forgave my brother, who ended up closer to him than anyone.

I hope your son never knows those hells. They are hard to watch in the ones you love.

My dad was a WWII vet and never talked about it. It wasn’t until after he died that we realized that the Bronze Star wasn’t something they “gave to everyone” as my dad told us. And we didn’t know that he had been awarded a Purple Heart. My grandma told me that when he came back if one of his little brothers or sisters bugged him for war stories he would get up and leave, somtimes not coming back for a few days…
War is harrowing. And while personally I think military discipline would be good for this kid, the Marines are in the process of seducing him flattering him and giving him gifts. But like all seducers, once they have gotten what they want (his enlistment signature) they will move on to the next mixed up kid.

Do make sure he is exposed to the debunking of recruiter sales pitches. I have a good friend who is was a marine recruiter for 10 years and you are exactly right, they will say and do anything to get a kid signed up and immediately abandon him as soon as he is obligated. They have quotas and very little oversight.

I certainly have. Especially past DADT. My view of the armed forces is now enforced doctrination in homsexuality as normal, with adventures overseas to shoot people who don’t conform to American Imperialism.